


no luck but you

by ninemoons42



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Challenge Response, F/M, I mean stormtroopers go down in massive numbers as usual, Inspired By Tumblr, Jyn is the blind believer, Originally Posted on Tumblr, POV Outsider, Prompt Fic, Prompt Fill, Role Reversal, Tumblr Prompt, and Baze is a Fulcrum, and Baze is the Rebel, and Cassian believes in her, rebelcaptain swap roles in the story with spiritassassin basically, so Chirrut is the one being hunted by the Imps
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-20
Updated: 2017-03-20
Packaged: 2018-10-08 07:30:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10381647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42
Summary: In the ruined precincts of the temple in the Holy City of Jedha, Baze Malbus has a lot of things on his mind: how to dispatch lots of stormtroopers, how to protect Chirrut Imwe, and what to make of the Guardians of the Whills that the two of them have just run into.(First meetings, under fire.)





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [error_era](https://archiveofourown.org/users/error_era/gifts), [kannibal (keio)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/keio/gifts).



Skidding around a dusty corner piled high with broken walls and fallen doors, Baze threw one more blind shot over his shoulder and then all but dove for doubtful cover, fingers already moving over the carbine in his hands, rapidly swapping out parts to turn it into a makeshift repeater cannon. Precious seconds wasted, he thought, and swore, as he unwound his bandolier of power packs and jammed the first one home, vicious and unwilling to admit that he was panicking, because he was not going to lose the asset he had just procured, he wasn’t, he was going to protect Chirrut even when Chirrut was more than fool enough to run headlong into a running battle between stormtroopers and those Partisan fighters –-

Swinging up over the jagged teeth of the crumbling structure, sighting in even as he tracked the nearest moving bodies –-

Baze stopped dead, and stared. Whirl of limbs and surefooted motion in the nearest bit of half-empty space, seeming to dance even among those who had already fallen: and he stared, almost uncomprehending, as Chirrut Imwe brandished the baton in his left hand and then smashed it into helmet and chestplate and one knee, throwing the hapless trooper he’d been beating up on into the dust.

Again Chirrut brought the batons up to ready position and looked around, lips curled only a little back over his teeth, not to be cocky but to be prepared for anything else that was coming his way, or so Baze thought –-

“Hold!”

Kriff.

One dozen stormtroopers with all their weapons already brought to bear on the man with the batons.

Baze swore, again. Reluctantly placed Chirrut square in his sights. If the Empire took him, and the knowledge of the last caches of kyber crystals that was still hidden within his mind, then it was up to Baze to do the right thing –- not the honorable thing by far, but that which would be just –-

Movement, outside of the ring of white armor and black-muzzled weapons.

Baze blinked again. He had taken the area to be surrounded with heaps of shattered rock and the remains of long-since-demolished dwellings, and he was not expecting one of those heaps to move –- much less uncoil itself and stand, revealing a woman in gray robes and a vivid sash, black striped with red, as he had once seen on the multitudes flocking to the very temple in whose old precincts they were standing.

A staff in the woman’s hand, overtopping her by several inches. Her head tilting this way and that, and after a moment Baze realized that she was navigating the world not by sight but by sound. She was listening to her own footsteps, to the tap of the staff against the rocks on the street. “Now, now,” she was saying, milky eyes turned in the general direction of the troopers with the largest guns, “do you really mean to disrespect this place?”

“What place,” was the insolent reply, distorted by helmet and static.

“The kind of place that pilgrims still come to see.”

“Run along or else be arrested,” that same trooper snapped.

The woman tilted her head again. “That’s disappointing,” she said, and now a blade-like smile stretched her mouth wide, sharpened her already fey features. “I didn’t come out here to be arrested. Nor did he,” and her hand shot out to point, unerring, in Chirrut’s direction.

Cautiously Baze reached for one of his holdout blasters.

“Don’t move,” the woman said. “Can’t risk hitting you.”

Baze had only that moment to catch the startled glance that Chirrut threw in the little woman’s direction –- and then that very same little woman seemed to blur into movement, the rapid slashing strikes of her staff and feet taking out four –- no, five –- stormtroopers in just the first few seconds alone.

That was his cue, Baze thought, and he lunged for the troopers coming up behind him, firing and firing at extremely close range, hissing as fragments of shattering armor slashed at his exposed skin, but every trooper he took down was a trooper that wouldn’t be targeting Chirrut –- or the woman –-

“Stay down, stranger,” she called out, and Baze whirled as quickly as dispatching the rest of the troopers would permit –-

To watch as the woman danced around the entire length of her staff and then thrust it straight into the throat of one of the other stormtroopers, and he winced as the blunt tip came out the back, red blood garish against the armor, against the dust on the ground –-

Rumbling, beneath Baze’s feet, and he swore again, more viciously this time, as he leapt to Chirrut’s side –- just in time to cover him, scant inadequate cover though his own body might be. Two armored carriers rumbling through the none-too-wide alleys, weapons out and bristling and already smoking from having to blast their way in in the first place.

He could take one out, if he aimed well and if he was lucky –- but that would still mean that the other carrier would just shoot him in the back, and Chirrut would be killed or taken next –-

Baze gritted his teeth and held his weapon steady, and out of the corner of his eye he saw that the woman was calmly folding her arms over her chest, was seemingly content to just stand there and wait to die.

How was it possible that she was still smiling?

Words on the wind, words in a language he only just recognized as something that some of the locals spoke on Fest –-

The woman laughed, quiet and carrying –-

The force of the first armored carrier suddenly exploding in a shock of flames nearly threw Baze to the ground –- but it did give him the opening he needed, and he expended one power pack in shooting out the other vehicle’s passengers –- he spent a second pack into the carrier itself –- and he hardly blinked when Chirrut dashed past him, heading straight for the other troopers who had tried to seek shelter –- he could hear the loud cracking impacts of batons against armor and he kept one eye on the foolish man.

Movement toward the woman, who was now openly grinning, and now there was a man who only pretended to walk with a pronounced stoop –- for before Baze’s eyes that man straightened his shoulders and threw back the hood of his grimy cloak, revealing not only the scars in his face but the indulgent smile that he was directing at his diminutive companion.

“I always say I hate it when you’re the bait,” the newcomer said. “But how can I argue with the results?”

“We make a great team,” was her reply. “Together we’re lucky.”

“I don’t believe in luck,” the man said, and for some reason that made the woman cover up a laugh with one generous sleeve.

Baze blinked when Chirrut spoke next to him: “You called out to me in the marketplace.”

Her hand in the crook of his arm as they approached. “Hello, elder brothers,” she said, and the scars that seamed her face only seemed to make her smile even sunnier. “Good to see you again.”

“Those robes,” Baze heard himself say to the woman. “Your sash. You belong to this place.”

The man by her side nodded, sweeping his cloak aside to reveal his own sash. “We came too late to save our temple from falling. But here we will stay now, and so no more thieves will come and carry away our order’s last treasures.”

“He means me,” the woman said, frowning, and the lines in her face like old written history.

“You know about the ways of the Force,” Baze heard Chirrut say.

A nod. “I do. And the two of you have a connection to it, as well, and so we call you our brothers.”

“Let’s not talk here,” the man said.

The man at Baze’s side took a half-step forward. “I’m Chirrut.”

Baze sighed, and did not roll his eyes. “I am Baze. I’m with the Rebel Alliance.”

“We know who you are –- we knew that it would be you coming here,” the woman said, and held out her hand. “I am Jyn, and this is my companion Cassian. We were once counted among the Guardians of the Whills.”

“We’re looking for Saw Gerrera,” Chirrut said, in a low voice.

“We might be able to help you with that,” was Cassian’s reply. “Please, if you will follow us.”

Baze shook his head to clear it of the ringing that had come from the fight, and that was how he heard the exchange between the Guardians:

“You believe in me that much.” Jyn.

“I believe in you, and in the Force, and in us.” Cassian’s reply was low and sweet. “Together we make our own luck.”

Baze felt abashed to have heard those words, private as they were, sacrosanct as they were, like promises often renewed.

A corner to turn, and Baze stopped of his own accord, and looked away. Held up a hand to block Chirrut’s eyes.

It was enough for him to catch a very brief glimpse of Jyn and Cassian touching their foreheads together, whispering in that same Festian language. The sweet smile on Jyn’s face and the spark in Cassian’s eyes.

“Everything’s going to be all right,” Chirrut said, and Baze looked over at him, where he was smiling at a spot on the ground between his feet.

He couldn’t believe in a pronouncement as flimsy as that.

But those two, well, they were another story entirely.

Them, maybe, he could believe in.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Prompt Seven: "luck" at [@rebelcaptainprompts](http://rebelcaptainprompts.tumblr.com/) over on Tumblr.
> 
> I am also on tumblr myself -- look me up [@ninemoons42](http://ninemoons42.tumblr.com/)!


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